Recent Comments

1. Switch To Good (Green Or Socially Resonsible) Energy - 12 Jun 2006

   We changed from Powergen at the beginning of December last year, we are still receiving letters in the post asking us to go back to them. We are receiving less letters now, but at one point we were getting 2 or 3 a week, and this continued until at least arch, since then we have had one (and occasionaly 2) a week, I hope they have now got he message, we haven’t had one for 2 weeks!

   All the waste of paper, which was recycled in my doorstep collection box, or used as shopping lists!

2. Choose to have one meat-free day a week in your home - 12 Jun 2006

   We are all vegetarian, well except for the cats, and I think I’ll leave them as they are!

3. DIY vegetables! - 12 Jun 2006

   We only have a small garden, but we planted Chard, Lettuce, Courgettes, Cucumber and peppers. The slugs had the courgettes, and the cat knocked the peppers over.

   The Chard is starting to look very pretty, we have 4 lettuce (slugs had the rest) and the cucumber is a little yellow!

   We were also given 11 strawberry plants and had our first strawberry yesterday.

   We have just planted some more courgette seeds, it maybe a little late in the season, but we’ll see if they grow.

4. DIY vegetables! - 12 Jun 2006

   We only have a small garden, but we planted Chard, Lettuce, Courgettes, Cucumber and peppers. The slugs had the courgettes, and the cat knocked the peppers over.

   The Chard is starting to look very pretty, we have 4 lettuce (slugs had the rest) and the cucumber is a little yellow!

   We were also given 11 strawberry plants and had our first strawberry yesterday.

   We have just planted some more courgette seeds, it maybe a little late in the season, but we’ll see if they grow.

5. Go Local - Join A Food Cooperative - 12 Jun 2006

   Does anyone know of a food co-op in Gloucester or Cheltenham?

6. Compost Your Leftovers - 12 Jun 2006

   Used our first ‘crop’ of compost this year. Wow! It was fantastic. The egg shells did not compost that well, but we shall remember to crush them up well in future.

   We now have really crumbly rich compost.

   So far with the heat our compost bin is going down and down, it amazes me where it all goes!

7. Compost Your Leftovers - 12 Jun 2006

   We dont turn our compost, we were advised to add paper (scrunched into balls), egg boxes and loo roll tubes – this makes air spaces. We were also told to water our bin occasionally in the summer to stop it drying out.

8. Switch To Energy Saving Lightbulbs - 12 Jun 2006

   I have found the largest range of energy saving bulbs in Ikea, lots of different shapes and sizes.

9. Go Ethical With Some of your Savings - 12 Jun 2006

   Co-op Bank are not as ethical as you may think. Since 1992, the Bank has supposedly followed an ethical investment policy which is supposed to offer people (all increasingly being forced to use bank accounts), somewhere environmentally friendly to stash their cash. In this promotion of ‘capitalism-lite’, the Co-op is joined by a handful of smaller banks like the Ecology Building Society and Triodos, but its preference for larger profits has led it to compete with the real bad guys at places like Barclays and NatWest. Co-op bosses have realised that they can’t make profits big enough to impress City fat cats without dancing with the devil themselves and hence their decision to invest in Glaxo Smithkline and Vodafone. Click on teh link below to see further details. http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news539.htm

10. Energy Efficient Cooking - 12 Jun 2006

    I do this with the oven, I turn the oven off 5 or 10mins before the end of cooking and let the dinner finish with the heat thats already in there.

11. Slow Down, Calm Down (Stick to the speed limit) - 13 Jun 2006

    Do you really get there any quicker?

    I worked 25 miles from home, everyday I would drive at the speed limit along a country road. The road was reasonally busy, single lane and occasionally it turned into a dual carriageway. At the end of the non stop 12 miles was a roundabout. This is where I would meet the cars that had overtaken me!

    I was very amused, some used to pull out dangerously to overtake, others just flew by. And everyday there they were in front of me by several metres! Hoe much extra fuel would they have burned at the speed that they travelled?

    The longer the distance, the more miles you will cover if speeding, but is it really worth it!! Risking your life and others, and adding the extra CO2 and other pollutants to the environment?

12. Compost Your Leftovers - 26 Feb 2007

    We have been composting for some time, but we have just bought a new composter. We have put the new one next to the back door, on slabs. Our other one is at the bottom of the garden on soil. I have read many articles on composting, some say put them on earth, some say on slabs. Anyway, we will see! The one at teh bottom of the garden doesn’t smell, so we are hoping that the one next to the house doesn’t, and if it does we’ll just have to move it!